Tag Archives: Dark Culture

Here we go again – DarkCulture.Net

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*sigh*

I keep getting these little notices from my web host telling me that my domain is about to expire. This one, the one for Dark Culture. The last few years, whenever the renew notice comes, I’ve sat around thinking about what I should do and thinking how I really let Dark Culture fall by the wayside. It’s quite clear that Dark Culture, as a magazine, is dead. As any kind of working website, it’s dead. For a while, I was getting down to business with the podcasts; getting them organized and I’d even put a new one online. And it’s not that I don’t want to do the podcasts, it’s just that I haven’t had the time. You see, it’s not just about picking tracks from my collection (which is massive); it requires time to research new bands, download songs I want, etc. And then there’s the post work which involves putting it online, updating the xml file, and posting notices all over Heck.

Unhappily, Dark Culture hasn’t been anything recognizable in years. When I converted it from a PostNuke site to a WordPress blog, I really thought that I would update it more. I haven’t. A good deal of this lethargy can be blamed on the fact that I’ve been concentrating on my career. We moved, my Dad died, and my life has taken on a whole new appearance. I don’t club as much as I used to. About that: it’s not that I don’t love the clubs. I always have. What I never loved was the drama, the idiots, the people I just can’t bear to see. Now, as a 30-something, it’s hard for me to see the same people I saw 15 years ago, doing the same things, being lame, annoying, doing drugs, or drinking too much. For the most part, I stayed away from all that. I did the best I could even when my own circle of friends partook in drama, drugs, and drink. Oh sure, I drank, but I never got into drugs and I tried to stay from as much drama as I could. Easier said that done. And there are good people that still club – they club because like me, it’s about the music and dancing. It’s not about the drama. Sadly, it’s often hard to avoid…even at 34 years old.

OK, so I always come back around to this. Almost every year when the renewal comes up, I labor over a decision. It’s only $9.95 to renew the site for another year. I suppose I labor because Dark Culture symbolizes something I loved, something I spent hundreds of hours working on, a dream, a beloved hobby. It was even something one or two people enjoyed reading. And now, a shadow of it’s former self…just sitting there like Miss Havisham, left at the alter, gathering dust.

Did I really want Dark Culture to be the greatest web magazine in the world? No, not really. I only ever wanted it to be a source of entertainment for the Gothic community online. It was, for a time. For a time, it was pretty great. I know one thing, it never will be great again. I just don’t have the time. I don’t want to spend countless hours laboring over code, chasing writers, writing about lame bands I hate, or making weekly trips to the post office. About the post office: I haven’t paid the bill in months. I haven’t wanted to go in and see if my account was still open. Part of me is embarrassed that I let it go so long. The other part is that…well, it means I’m going to just let those CD’s sit in my office for an undermined period of time. It’s not like I’m getting all that many anymore anyway.

*sigh*

Sadly, the last few times I’ve renewed the domain, it was because I couldn’t make up my mind about it and just wanted to stall another year. I need to figure this out. Not that $9.95 is a whole lot. Actually, I don’t have to do anything. I could stall another year and see what happens. I suspect that next year things will let up a bit and I may actually have more time to do Dark Culture podcasts. Because that’s what it’s all about: Music. Now that we’re knee deep in wedding preparations, I must take a Scarlet O’Hara approach and think about it tomorrow – or next year.

Not renewing means several things: Moving this blog to kristensimental.com, moving all the files, updating the mailing list about the site’s final demise, and saying my ultimate good-bye. That’s harder than you think. Saying good-bye to Dark Culture means a whole lot. It’s like this old friend I knew once upon a time. A good friend that helped keep me sane, showed me that I’m smarter than I think, helped me realize my commitment to music, and gave me something to do when my life wasn’t going anywhere. That’s a big deal, isn’t it? And part of it really is the staggering amount of time I put into it. To say “goodbye”, just like that? Perhaps I’m just not ready to.

I guess I’ve made my decision.

Close Call

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OMG! I thought I might have killed my blog. And then I thought, holy crap! Five years of blogs and memories, gone, just like that! How could this have happened, you ask? Well, I have two domains. www.kristensimental.com and www.darkculture.net. The Dark Culture blog (formally a fully loaded webzine and formallly gothicpreservation.com) is located in the main directory. This blog is located in a sub-directory of darkculture.net in a folder named /blog. It had been a while since I’d updated the application that runs the Dark Culture blog, but in order to do that, I had to delete everything from the www.darkculture.net domain. Are you following me? Initially, when I switched the old Dark Culture Magazine format into the easy-to-update blog format, I did a hard install – which means I installed the application without any assistance from my host; which offers what they call “one click installs”. These are very handy because I don’t have to fiddle with any code and when updates are available, all I have to do it click a button. Simple.

Because I’d done a hard install the first time around, this meant I couldn’t use the one click install application. Thus, in order to use it and make my life easier in the long term, I had to start fresh. Naturally, it had been a while since I’d done any backend work on Dark Culture, so I forgot the cardinal rule of updates. BACK UP, BACK UP, AND BACK UP! ALWAYS! I did not. Thus, I lost anything that had been posted to the new version of Dark Culture. Let’s forget about the last 10 years of content that is sitting somewhere gathering dust waiting to be restored and probably never will.

So what does this all mean for Dark Culture? Not a whole lot, really. Frankly, my heart hasn’t been in Dark Culture for a while now. I enjoy doing the podcasts and occasionally posting news, but that’s about it. I can’t remember the last time I wrote a review and truth be told, Dark Culture has been half ass for a few years now. And that right there makes me sad. Dark Culture was always a labor of love. I tried making money at it, but it just never happened. I could never get enough advertising to simply pay for the hosting. Readership suffers when you make major changes or are down for long periods of time, so I can’t imagine all that many people read it on a regular basis. Statistics tell me that when I upload a new podcast, I get some good traffic – even if no one comments or gives me feedback. However, the way search engines a’plenty spider my site, it could just be fluff traffic and not anyone legitimate.

*sigh* So what will become of Dark Culture? I recall spending countless hours working on the site, updating, chasing after writers, laboring over content…I remember staying up until the sun rose on some nights. I can’t put that kind of effort into it anymore and frankly, I don’t want to.

Because Dark Culture was one of the first websites of it’s kind, I inspired numerous people to start their own webzines. That’s nice, but they’re a whole lot more excited about it than I am and they put in the effort. The writers I once had have all gone separate ways and wouldn’t come back if I asked them. I suppose I could find new writers, but just as it was then, it’s hard to find people who’ll work for nothing. Writing credit on a half ass webzine? I wouldn’t do it either. So here I am, at yet another cross-roads with Dark Culture. Part of me doesn’t want to let it go because I still hold some ideals for it. I’ve always dreamt of what it could have been, but never will. Besides, I’m not all that active in the Goth scene anymore – at least, not as much as I used to be. I still enjoy the music and hearing new bands, but I’m less inclined to write about them.

Oh, this all makes me so sad. There was a point where Dark Culture was an amazing website, but it’s a shadow of it’s former self now. It’s been broken so many times, I don’t know if it can recover. I guess I’ll continue to make podcasts. Those make me happy and I love doing them. Now, to find the time.

Over the years I’ve had numerous close calls with almost losing everything. Today I lost the latest incarnation of Dark Culture, but luckily this blog is in tact. It’s funny how our priorities shift over time. It also reminds me to back things up more. I mean, I was actually sweating while waiting for the site to re-upload. I thought, what am I going to do if I lose it all? I almost cried thinking about it. This blog is so much a part of me that I can’t envision living without it. I mean, if I had lost it, I would have lived, but I would have been really fucking depressed about it.

A sigh of relief. I’m going to back up this blog once a month and never scare the shit out of myself again.